ALICE Ch 344

“Yes! No!” Faye bounces in her seat and groans as Valeria Flores overtakes Alice. For a moment, it looked as though Alice would keep her boxed out. Not so.

Val has hardly spoken a word to Faye, or even looked at her. She doesn’t come off as being particularly disagreeable, but Faye still doesn’t like her. Probably because there’s a sense of familiarity between her and Alice that Faye can’t seem to match. It’s probably something to do with the cultural barrier, or the fact that Alice has known Val longer. One can never rule out the importance of Val being prettier, thinner, and a faster driver. Val is tiny like Faye, but very pert, while Faye has battled feeling fat and flabby for her entire life.

This isn’t benign envy, it’s active jealousy, which is somewhat new to Faye. She reminds herself that she’s still recovering, and that she needs to relax.

David Croft goes on. “And Woodcock comes within a centimeter of making it stick, but Sainz does not blink! Still, it’s pit strategy that’ll tell the tale! Laakso, keeping it simple!”

FF1

“Alice, Kirsi’s pitting. She’ll come out right on top of you,” Glynda warns. “It’s time to push.”

Alice doesn’t need to be told that. She’s one with the gray blur that is the world. In these driving conditions, much of the technical minutia that ordinary F1 demands goes out the window. The car has to be an extension of her body, and even the slightest sense of a loss of control is a loud siren. She has no grip, but neither does anyone else. No one dares go flat out, which means there is room for someone to dare. But luck will play as much of a role in the outcome as skill.

Val’s pulling away.

“Watch out,” Glynda warns.

Right on cue, Kirsi bursts out of the pit lane. Alice makes a mature decision, and considers how to proceed. Kirsi Laakso always performs better in the race than she does in qualifiers, but she’s still a careful, defensive racer. She chases points, not the championship. Going purely by feel, it’s Turn 7 where the water is most dangerous.

“I’m taking her at seven,” Alice announces.

Glynda probably wants to argue, but chooses not to.

FF1

Erica Bruhl, as always, has managed to get her nerves under control as the race has progressed. Normally, she would be filing away moments and highlights. Netflix has demonstrated that by turning F1 from a race into a story about people, this can be an engaging sport. The same applies to the struggling field of sports writing.

Unfortunately, there’s only one promising thing going on. A Woodcock sister having a good race is lovely, but Alice Wilde has just passed Kirsi Laakso, and she’s gaining on Val. That is the story that people care about it, and it just happens to involve two of Erica’s conquests. She really would prefer to write about someone else. Anyone else.

But there’s nothing for it. Most of all, she doesn’t want to write about a ghastly crash. Her fingers grip the fabric of her shorts.